Technical Field
The present invention relates to an anesthetic syringe that has a nerve detector to detect a radiative energy from a nerve.
Description Of The Related Art
The “background” description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description which may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly or impliedly admitted as prior art against the present invention.
In performing a nerve block or local anesthetic injection, a medical professional will inject an anesthetic drug into the tissue of a patient at a location where the anesthetic effect is most desired. Generally, this injection site is close to a major nerve, in which the anesthetic affects the major nerve and thus anesthetizes downstream minor nerves. Injecting in such an optimal location allows for a greater influence of the drug. However, locating such an optimal location remains challenging for a medical professional, as the exact location of major nerves differs from patient to patient. To further complicate this matter, the medical professional furthermore must avoid neural tissue spearing or injecting into a blood vessel, both of which lead to unintended outcomes for a patient.
Some technologies currently exist for viewing nerves and may be used to guide an anesthetic injection. For instance, nerves may be imaged by CT scan or MRI, however, given the confines of the imaging apparatus, a nerve block injection cannot easily be performed in tandem. After imaging, the data collected from a CT scan or MRI may be too complex for a medical professional to interpret in terms of specific locations of nerves. In addition, some medical offices, and especially dental offices, might not have access to CT or MRI equipment.
Another technique, image guided anesthesia, is in use for viewing and locating major nerves. Here ultrasonography imaging is used to find an optimal injection site in real-time. However, this technique involves two separate handheld instruments (the ultrasonography probe and the syringe), and may be too cumbersome to use in some locations, such as a patient's mouth.
Lastly, some methods of direct electrical stimulation have been proposed for locating nerves for optimal anesthetic injections. However, this requires electrical leads in direct contact with the patient and may cause risk for patients with electronic medical implants, such as pacemakers. Also, these methods do not create a direct mapping of a nerve's location, and where the syringe needle or other needles are used as electrical leads, a risk of neural tissue sparing or harming the nerves with electric current still exists.
In view of the forgoing, one objective of the present invention is to provide a syringe to detect a radiative energy from a nerve to determine a location proximal to a nerve to receive art anesthetic injection.